


Your meeting attendees are waiting

by msmorland



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23841112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmorland/pseuds/msmorland
Summary: Eames’s Zoom background is a beach, his t-shirt-covered torso hovering rather realistically between a lounge chair and an umbrella. Of course, Arthur finds himself thinking, even though he’s known of Eames’s existence for only about three hours and has never actually seen the man until now. Arthur’s own background is his home office, which is lined with built-in walnut bookcases. In gallery view, he and Eames look utterly ridiculous side-by-side. A study in contrasts.“Nice to meet you, Mr. Eames,” Arthur starts, deciding he might as well attempt to be polite.But: “It’s just Eames, pet,” is what Eames says back. And then, in defiance of all Arthur’s attempts at professionalism, he purrs, “And it’s a pleasure.”
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 91





	Your meeting attendees are waiting

**Author's Note:**

> Like many people with desk jobs, I’m spending a lot more time working from home these days. I started thinking about what Arthur and Eames might be like on video calls, and this fic was the result. (There’s no pandemic in this universe, just the standard-issue entertainments and challenges of remote working.)

Someone on the call refuses to learn the most basic functions of Zoom, and Arthur has had enough. Especially since that someone insists on _humming_ while Arthur is trying to lead a meeting.

“Would everyone,” he grits out for the fourth time on this call, “please, for the love of all that is holy, mute yourselves.”

The humming stops.

“Thank you,” Arthur says, not exactly kindly. “Now, as I was saying, for this to work, we’ll have to—”

The humming resumes, this time with an added crackle that sounds distinctly like a bag of chips being opened.

Arthur pauses, takes the deepest breath he can possibly fit into his lungs, raises his voice, and continues talking as if the background noise—now with the addition of crunching on the aforementioned chips—isn’t there. But he makes a mental note to hunt the hummer down. 

And Arthur never, ever forgets a mental note.

* * *

In the end, it takes only a few inquiries. _It’s Eames_ , Ariadne DMs him later that day. _The new designer. That’s your humming, snacking mute-defier._

_Thanks_ , Arthur writes back, making a mental note for her next performance review that mocking one’s boss over Slack DM is not acceptable workplace behavior. Sure, they all work remotely and the company likes to brag about its casual, we’re-a-family-not-a-business culture, but Arthur believes in professional standards.

Arthur DMs Eames, the only person in the entire company who has left his last name—or his first name; Arthur doesn’t know—out of his profile.

 _Hey._ Arthur intentionally adds the period, putting all his aggravation into it. _Do you have a minute to hop on a call this afternoon?_

 _For you, darling?_ Eames writes back instantly. _Anything._

Arthur makes a mental note to figure out who Eames’s supervisor is. 

* * *

Eames’s Zoom background is a beach, his t-shirt-covered torso hovering rather realistically between a lounge chair and an umbrella. _Of course_ , Arthur finds himself thinking, even though he’s known of Eames’s existence for only about three hours and has never actually seen the man until now. Arthur’s own background is his home office, which is lined with built-in walnut bookcases. In gallery view, he and Eames look utterly ridiculous side-by-side. A study in contrasts.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Eames,” Arthur starts, deciding he might as well attempt to be polite.

But: “It’s just Eames, pet,” is what Eames says back. And then, in defiance of all Arthur’s attempts at professionalism, he _purrs_ , “And it’s a pleasure.” 

Arthur blinks. Tries to hold tight to that sense of professionalism.

“Glad to hear it, Mr. Eames,” Arthur says, determined. “And I’m sure you won’t mind if I start by talking about your behavior in the meeting earlier today. Not only did you choose not to mute yourself when asked, but you proceeded to eat a bag of chips—”

“Crisps, darling,” Eames interrupts. “They were crisps.”

“Word choice aside, Mr. Eames, the fact remains that you were disruptive during a very important meeting, and that kind of behavior—”

“Was it?”

“Was it what, Mr. Eames?”

“A very important meeting. I have to say, pet, that I haven’t the foggiest what it was actually about.”

Arthur has the sudden suspicion that Eames is heightening his accent for effect.

“It was about streamlining our process for delivering our projects to clients in an efficient manner,” Arthur says. He tries to say it with a straight face. He isn’t sure he succeeds.

Eames—and Arthur is not surprised by this—smirks at him.

“Just remember the mute button next time, Mr. Eames,” Arthur says, and ends the call.

That could have gone better, Arthur thinks.

* * *

Arthur decides that he can just mute everyone from his perch as meeting owner from then on, but he finds himself looking for Eames in the gallery view of each call. Whatever Eames is doing—snacking, smirking, doodling—is inevitably aggravating.

Eames’s work, Arthur has to admit, if only to himself, is _good_. He’s the best designer Arthur has ever worked with. But Arthur doesn’t believe in lowering his standards of behavior for anyone, no matter how talented they are. Rules are rules. No one is special enough to get away with breaking them.

One day, the third time Arthur catches Eames clearly staring off at his second monitor through an entire meeting, he officially reaches his limit.

 _Hey._ He messages Eames again that afternoon. _You might want to review the meeting etiquette doc before the next call._ Arthur pastes the link directly into the DM in the likely vain hope that that will move Eames to click on it. 

The next day, to Arthur’s surprise, Eames does appear to be looking at Arthur’s screen-shared presentation. In fact, every time Arthur glances toward his little square, Eames is watching him, a gleam in his eye, that same smirk on his face.

It doesn’t make Arthur feel overly warm there in his home office. Not at all.

Toward the end of the call, Eames picks up a glass of water and, without moving away from the screen, drinks the entire thing in one go. Arthur doesn’t realize he’s gone silent, watching Eames’s throat move, until his phone dings with a text from Ariadne. _Think you froze. None of us can hear you anymore._

Arthur’s not frozen, as he’s sure Ariadne very well knows, but he takes the out. “Sorry about that,” he says to the team. “My Zoom’s glitchy and I froze for a minute there. Now, where was I?”

Out of gratitude, he erases every mental note he’s ever made about Ariadne.

* * *

An attraction to his most annoying colleague—that’s not inconvenient at all. And Arthur has to admit that it is an attraction: his eyes go to Eames first on every call, and that silence he slipped into while watching Eames do something as basic as drink a glass of water isn’t as much of an anomaly as it should be.

Arthur isn’t Eames’s superior, so there’s no issue there. But they don’t even live in the same time zone, Arthur reminds himself. Eames surely has as little patience with Arthur as Arthur has with him. And Arthur refuses to be attracted to people who think they’re above the rules.

 _Enough_ , Arthur tells himself, after one meeting where his distraction prevents him from hearing all of Dom’s instructions for Arthur’s next project. _Get a grip._

He manages to for a week or so, ignoring Eames almost entirely. He doesn’t look at him in meetings or DM him with reminders. When he finds himself wondering what Eames might be doing in any given moment, Arthur reminds himself, firmly, to focus.

Until 5 p.m. on Friday, when he sees that he has a DM from Eames. _Got a minute?_ the message reads. And there’s a Zoom link.

When Arthur clicks the link, Eames is already in the meeting. He’s changed his background to something more serious—not quite Arthur’s walnut bookshelves, but some kind of art studio. Eames has easels behind him, and a long table, and Arthur thinks he sees a set of...pastels? He’s actually not sure what they’re called. Eames shifts in his chair and the background behind him, unlike Eames’s usual tropical beaches and neon nightclubs, doesn’t white out. Which means Arthur is looking at Eames’s real home. His personal studio.

“Arthur,” Eames says, and Arthur is so startled to hear his actual name out of Eames’s mouth that he sits up straighter and adjusts his tie. “I owe you an apology.”

“A what now?” Arthur says. He sounds like Ariadne. 

“You know I do, darling,” Eames says. “I’ve been unforgivably rude in all of our meetings. I’m ordinarily much more professional.”

Arthur recovers the power of speech. And the ability to smirk. “Is that so, Mr. Eames?” 

“You might find this hard to believe, darling, but—well, I’ve always been one to pull a girl’s pigtails, as it were.”

Arthur’s brain stalls out for a second. Is Eames saying—? Does he mean—? 

Apparently so.

He feels he owes Eames a confession of sorts in return. “My Zoom isn’t really glitchy,” he says. “I don’t freeze during meetings.” Arthur takes a deep breath. “You’re just very distracting.”

“Not half as distracting as you are, darling, surely.”

They stare at each other through their screens. Arthur didn’t know it was possible to feel this way through a screen. If only he and Eames were in the same room, Arthur wouldn’t just be looking—but it probably isn’t a good idea to start thinking about that while he’s still on the company’s Zoom.

Eames seems to realize the same thing. “Arthur,” he says. “Can I call you later, darling?”

When he looks at his own image on the call, Arthur’s grin is sharp, and he sees Eames’s eyes spark in return. “I look forward to it, Mr. Eames,” Arthur says.

They’re both distracted on Monday.


End file.
